S2 Ep.3 Where God Waits: Inside The Work Of Mercy

What if the fast God desires looks less like somber faces and more like shared bread, loosened yokes, and mended relationships? We open Isaiah 58 and let it reframe Lent from private sacrifice to public love, from spiritual mood to concrete mercy. Along the way, we confront a piercing truth: you can be spiritually serious and still be misaligned with what God wants most. The remedy is not louder piety but deeper proximity—toward the hungry, the unhoused, the overlooked, and even the kin we’ve learned to avoid.

We walk through the prophet’s unsettling clarity and hopeful promise. God is not impressed by symbolic suffering; God is concerned with real suffering. Healing follows love. Light follows justice. Nearness follows participation in God’s work. Instead of chasing renewal without disruption, we let love interrupt our schedules and budgets so there’s room for generosity to move. We explore practical, grounded questions for Lent: where do we hold quiet power—time, money, influence, flexibility—and how might we let it serve someone else’s good? What systems do we benefit from without asking who pays the hidden cost? Where have we normalized distance from pain and called it balance?

This conversation is tender with those who carry fatigue. Alignment, not exhaustion, is the call. We suggest small, faithful steps: turn fasting into margin that funds kindness, trade a habit for a human, speak up at work, listen longer at home, and let proximity do its slow work. Isaiah’s closing vision names us repairers of the breach and restorers of streets to live in—ordinary places becoming safer, kinder, more human. If you’ve longed for a Lent that feels meaningful, not just measurable, this is a path where devotion becomes compassion, prayer becomes justice, and faith becomes light.

If this resonates, follow the show, share it with a friend who’s preparing for Lent, and leave a short review so others can find these reflections. What will your fast free you to give this week?

Let's Get Into It!!

Transcript

Welcome And Lenten Frame

Speaker 0:08

Hello, friends, and welcome back to Ancient Truth for the Modern Heart. I'm Steve Pozzato, and I am so glad that you're here to spend this time with me. Last week we began preparing our hearts for Lent by listening to Jesus tell us where he can be found. And it wasn't in spiritual performance and it wasn't in private achievement. But rather, Jesus was to be found in people, in hungry people and lonely people, the forgotten people and the overlooked people. We heard Jesus say something that still touches me every single time I hear it. As you did it to one of the least of these, you did it to me. And today, I want to stay in that same posture, but allow scripture to press us just a little bit more deeply. And not gently, perhaps, and not vaguely, but honestly. Because if Lent is truly about giving ourselves out, then sooner or later we have to ask a harder question. What does God actually mean when God speaks about spiritual practice? And even further than that, what does God really want from us? So today, I want to listen with you to a passage that has shaped how the church has understood Lent for centuries. It comes from the prophet Isaiah, and I want to be up front with you. It's not a comfortable text, but it is a very loving one. So let's now hear these words together. Shout out, do not hold back. Lift up your voice like a trumpet, announce to my people their rebellion, to the house of Jacob their sins. Yet day after day they seek me and delight to know my ways, as if they were a nation that practiced righteousness and did not forsake the ordinance of their God. They ask me of righteous judgments, they delight to draw near to God. Why do we fast, but you do not see? Why humble ourselves, but you do not notice? Look, you serve your own interest on your fast day and oppress all your workers. Look, you fast only to quarrel and to fight and to strike with a wicked fist. And then God says, Is such the fast that I choose a day to humble oneself? Is it to bow down the head like a bulrush and to lie in sackcloth and ashes? Will you call this a fast, a day acceptable to the Lord? And then comes the turning point. Is not this the fast that I choose to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free and to break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into your house when you see the naked to cover them and not to hide yourself from your own kin? This passage from Isaiah 58, verses 1 through 12, is not always the most comfortable to hear. It's one of those passages that does not allow us to remain abstract about faith. It names real practices and real structures. It names real lives and real need. And what makes this passage so unsettling is that the people Isaiah is speaking to are not indifferent to God. They are praying, they are fasting, they are seeking, they are asking spiritual questions, they are actively participating in religious life, and they are deeply confused. They say to God, Why don't you notice? Why don't you respond? Why doesn't this thing that we do seem to be working? And God answers them, not with silence, but with truth, and not with rejection, but with correction. God says, in effect, your fasting has become disconnected from your neighbors, your worship has become disconnected from justice, your spirituality has become disconnected from love. That's an uncomfortable mirror. Because it means that it is possible to be spiritually serious and still miss what God desires most. It is possible to be sincere and still be misaligned. So let me say something gently because I know how much many of you listening carry a with you, and I know how much you care about your faith. This passage is not mocking religious devotion. It is protecting it. It is rescuing it from becoming something small and something private, something safe, something self-contained. God does not accuse the people of failing to pray. God accuses them of failing to love. And that distinction matters. Because love makes everything possible, including the prayer, including the spirituality and the thought behind the prayer, the connection to God through the prayer. And I want to slow down here for just a moment because I think one of the most painful realizations in a spiritual life is discovering that good intentions are not the same things as good formation. We can mean well, we can desire God sincerely, and I have no doubt that we do. And we can still build a life that does not reflect God's heart in doing those things. And in those moments, that doesn't make us evil. It just makes us human. And that doesn't mean humans are evil either. And Scripture meets us exactly in those places. The prophet speaks into a religious culture that has learned how to perform humility. Sack cloth is mentioned, ashes, bowed heads, visible signs of seriousness, all. But God says something astonishing. He says, I'm not impressed by symbolic suffering. I am concerned with real suffering. And that distinction is especially important for how we enter Lent. Because Lent is full of symbols. Ashes on our foreheads, somber language, quiet music and reflective readings. And those symbols matter. But God is very clear here. They must never replace engagement with real human pain. This is where I think Lent can quietly drift off course sometimes, when it becomes primarily about our internal experience, our spiritual mood and our sense of devotion, our personal discipline when we give up those things like coffee and chocolate, our private sacrifice. And Isaiah refuses to let faith remain that contained. Listen again to what God names. Loose the bonds of injustice, undo the yoke, let the oppressed go free, share your bread, bring the homeless into your house, clothe the naked, do not hide yourself from your own kin. That is not only about charity, it is also about courage, because loosening injustice is not always polite. Breaking yokes is not always convenient. Refusing to hide ourselves from suffering is not always emotionally manageable. And here is something that we often miss. This is not only about individual kindness, it is about how a community organizes its life, how power is used and how resources flow, how labor is treated and how the vulnerable are protected. Isaiah is not speaking only to private spirituality, he is speaking to a very public people. But before all of this feels overwhelming, I want to bring this back down to the scale of your actual life because Scripture is not asking you to repair the entire world. It is not your job to fix all of the wrongs. It is asking you to stop pretending that your life is disconnected from that world. Those are very different things. Because sometimes fixing a thing means that we are apart from it. But maybe repairing and fixing wrongs is something we can do from the inside. One person at a time. So we can fix these things from the inside again, one person at a time, even if that is ourselves or the people with us. We pray and we fast, we simplify, we reflect, we withdraw, and all of those practices are deeply meaningful. But Isaiah is very clear that if those practices do not lead us toward greater love, then they have lost our purpose. So, friends, we do these things together. When we pray, we can pray ourselves, yes, but praying with others is a beautiful practice. And this is where I want to connect directly to what we said last week. Jesus told us that he meets us in the least. Isaiah now tells us what it looks like when we actually take that seriously. We rearrange our priorities and we open our hands. That looks like discomfort and it looks like proximity. Remember that helping somebody, feeding somebody who is hungry, giving to those in need, spending time with them, is also a form of prayer. It is also how we share love, and love conquers all. So while you be the human, let the love that is God do that work through you. Let me speak even more honestly for a moment. Many of us going forward into this season of Lent want a Lent that feels meaningful. But I don't know that we're always prepared for a Lent that feels interruptive. We want renewal, but not disruption. We want spiritual growth, but not complicated relationships. We want depth, but not the vulnerability that depth requires. And Isaiah will not let us imagine a spirituality that stays tidy because love is rarely tidy. And none of this is to say or to accuse us of doing something incorrectly or something wrong. That's not what this is at all. It is that we need to approach this season with open hearts and open minds. Because there is also something very subtle and very challenging in this passage that God says. God says, do not hide yourself from your own kin, which tells us something very important. Sometimes the people we most easily avoid are the people who are closest to us. There's family conflict in every family, strained relationships, long-standing wounds, emotional distance. This passage is not only about the stranger, but it is also about the familiar, the uncomfortable, the unresolved. So Lent, if we let it, can become a season not only of social generosity but of relational courage. Who have you learned to quietly avoid? Who feels emotionally complicated to love? Who feels inconvenient to reconcile with? Isaiah places that directly inside the life of faith. And I want you to hear what God promises because that is not only a call, it is an invitation. Then your light shall break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up quickly. Your vindicator shall go before you, the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard. Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer. You shall cry for help, and he will say, Here I am. Notice the order in those words. Healing follows love. Light follows justice. God's nearness follows participation in God's work. We often want spiritual renewal without moral reorientation because that can sometimes be a lot of work and it can shake some of the things we feel are integral to our faith. God's nearness follows participation in God's work. Again, I say that. God's nearness follows participation in God's work. Three times I've said that. I think it is that important. I think sometimes we imagine that justice is something we add to faith, but Isaiah tells us that something faith naturally produces is justice. And here's something deeply hopeful. God does not say fix everything and then I will be near you. God says, as you move into love, I will meet you there. And that's beautiful because that's not transactional, it is relationship. And I want to pause again for those of you who carry fatigue because when we talk about justice and compassion and service, it can quietly sound like endless demand. So hear this carefully. Isaiah is not calling you to exhaustion. He is calling you to alignment. He is calling you and me to a way of life where our devotion and our love are no longer divided. You are not being asked to carry the world. You are being invited to carry one another. And there is a difference. And here is where I think this passage, sorry, gently but firmly stretches us. Last week we talked about noticing. This week Isaiah invites us to respond, not dramatically and heroically, but faithfully. So let me be practical then for a moment. If you want to enter Lent differently this year, less about what you remove and more about how you love, here are a few questions worth sitting with. Where in my life do I have power I rarely think about? Time, money, influence, flexibility, stability. Where might God be asking me to use that power for someone else's good? Where in my life do I benefit from systems I never question? Convenience, speed, low cost, invisible labor? What would it mean to become more honest about how those benefits are produced? Where in my life have I quietly accepted distance from suffering as normal? What have I trained myself not to notice? These are not comfortable questions, but they are faithful ones. And I want to say something very clearly. The passage is not meant to produce guilt, and neither is this podcast ever. It is meant to produce freedom because when love becomes part of our spiritual practice, faith becomes lighter, more spacious, more grounded, more real. One of the tragedies of shallow religion is that it reduces God to a personal comfort mechanism. I think Isaiah restores God as the one who is healing a wounded world and then invites us to participate in it. So let me say this gently. You will not always feel spiritually inspired when you are practicing this kind of love. Sometimes you will feel tired, sometimes you will feel unsure. Sometimes you will feel inadequate and slow. But Isaiah promises something very beautiful. That as we walk in this way, light begins to grow around us. Not spotlight and not applause, but a dawn. Quiet, steady, and unstoppable. If you do choose to fast this lent, let your fasting create room. Room in your schedule, room in your budget, room in your emotional bandwidth, room in your habits, so that love has somewhere to go. And if you choose to give something up there. Lent, let it be something that frees you to give something out. Not merely something that proves somehow your discipline, but something that enlarges your capacity to love. Perhaps that means giving up anger. Because Isaiah does not ask us to perform humility, he asks us to practice justice, to embody mercy. He asks us to become repairers, but not of the entire thing, listeners of pain, carriers of hope. And near the end of the passage, God gives the people a name. He says they will be called repairer of the breach, restorer of streets to live in. I love that phrase, streets to live in. Not monuments, not institutions or programs, but streets, places where ordinary life becomes safer and kinder and more human. And I think that that is where Lent leads us, not into religious intensity, but into deeper love. Not into spiritual isolation, but into shared life. So for this coming week, I want to offer you one simple, honest invitation. Pay attention to where you already have influence and ask another question. How could love become more visible here? Not perfect love, not impressive, but visible. It might mean giving time. It might mean speaking up or listening longer. It might mean learning something uncomfortable. It might mean changing one's small habit. Last week we practiced noticing. This week we practiced responding. And next week we will begin walking fully into Lent itself. Friends, God is not asking us to become more religious. God is inviting us to become more loving. And in that love to discover again what it means to walk with Christ. My friends, let us pray together. Gracious God, teach us the fast that you desire. Free us from small visions of faith. Open our lives to your healing work in the world. Give us courage to love where it is costly, patience to serve where it is slow, and humility to learn where we have been unaware. As we prepare to walk into Lent, shape us into people whose devotion becomes compassion, whose prayer becomes justice, and whose faith becomes light for all others we meet. Amen. Thank you again for spending this time with me here today, and may your week be shaped by a deeper love. Not only the love that you give, but the love that you are given. And may you discover quietly and faithfully that God is already waiting for you in the work of mercy. As this Wednesday is Ash Wednesday, there will be a special edition podcast, a briefer one, on Wednesday in the afternoon. Or maybe I'll have it for the morning. We'll see. But my friends, go forth into this season of Lent with a lighter heart, one filled with love, not one filled with desire and need and the idea of giving up. Love is abundant in us, and it is forever in God. Let that be all that we need this lent. Because wherever you carry love, you go in peace. Be well, my friends, and until next time, farewell.